THE GHOST SHIP

by Gerrie Ferris Finger

  “I always do. And God Speed to you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  --

  Barbados

  --

  In her hotel room in Bridgetown, she stood before the oval mirror, her knees bending and straightening while her hips swayed to rumba music playing on the dance floor of her mind. She had marcelled her front hairs into waves that covered her ears and coiled her back hairs into a knot at the nape of her neck. She'd lined her eyes, powdered her face white and painted her lips red. Lawrence was taking her to the night club and casino for an evening out before sailing in the morning. The ship, Lawrence had said, would be re-supplied by then, and the crew had one more night of liberty.

  When the knock on the door came, she pulled the shawl over her black dress with its waistline dropped to the hip. She felt marvelous in woman's clothes again. Her flat bosom lent itself to the angular style of the times. She rumba-ed toward the door and flung it open.

  Lawrence stood erect in the hall, his hat under an arm. “Good evening. You look very lovely.”

  She blushed, something she did often in his presence, especially when he looked like he looked now – a dashing man of the world with whom she would live her life. She'd made up her mind that somehow she'd be his companion – if that was all he wanted – forever. But for now she shook off the future and admired Lawrence in his dinner dress jacket with three stripes and a star on his shoulders. “USN,” she said. “I never noticed. I thought you were in the Coast Guard.”

  “Navy.”

  “I thought the Deering was the purview of the Coast Guard.”

  “As we are at war, Washington sent me to aid the Coast Guard. They suspect Russia may have something to do with her scuttling.”

  With a grin, she teased, “And you said you were the curator of the museum.”

  “I couldn't resist the joke, my dear, the play upon my name – a name I hope will mean something to you one day when we have succeeded in our mission.”

  On impulse, she said, “It means something now.”

  His eyes slid away, and he opened his mouth to speak just as another knock came.

  Her sinews tensed, and, looking at Lawrence, his face was an irregular outline of shadows and carved lines. She glanced at the door and called out, “Who is it?”

  “Hotel bellman, ma'am. I've a message for Mr. Lawrence Curator.”

  Lawrence raised a well-defined eyebrow and went to the door. Opening it, he said, “Yes. What is it?”

  “Telephone call at the desk, Sir.”

  Lawrence looked back at her. “Excuse me, I'll meet you in the lobby when you are ready to come downstairs.” Slipping out, he snapped the door shut.

  When she got to the lobby, she didn't see him. After a strange sense of paranoia that rendered her transfixed, her fear melding into desperation, she saw him in her peripheral vision, standing by a mirror where he hadn't been before. How had she missed him? But it was all right, he was there now..

  Seeing her, he strode up. “Bad news,” he said. “I must beg off this evening.”

  “But why?”

  “I just spoke with Captain Wormell on the telephone. His first mate, Charles McLellan, got drunk and was thrown in the brig. I must go there.”

  Disappointment hammered through her, and she tasted a little blood when she bit into her lip. A second later, she heard a man standing nearby clear his throat. She and Lawrence turned to face the man. He walked toward them, and Lawrence whispered in her ear, “Unfortunately, this is not a country that lets inmates out without extracting a price.”

  Halting next to them, the man said, “Who will pay the drunkard's bail?”

  “Captain Wormell, I dare say,” Lawrence said.

  “It will be steep, since time is of the essence.”

  Lawrence nodded and the bondsman walked away.

  Ann clutched Lawrence's arm. “How can you help Captain Wormell?”

  “Maybe I can't.”

  “Can I go?”

  “I think n…”

  “You know I can be silent. I've proven I can.”

  He hitched his shoulders in a slight shrug. “You win, as usual. But you must stay inside the car when I get to the garrison. The mere whiff of a woman like you and a riot would break out. Now be quick about changing your clothing.”

  All she had to do was think sack suit, brogues, hat, and she had them on. Lawrence led her to an ancient Chevy cab, and she preceded him into the back seat. When the car roared from beneath the hotel's canopy, the bondsman's car pulled behind the cab. Their driver drove like a lunatic through the brick streets. The tires slid to a halt at the gates of the brig right behind another hired car. Lawrence and the bondsman met Captain Wormell on the steps, and they disappeared inside the garrison. The drivers of the three hired cars vanished into a night fog leaving her to stare at the sinister prison gates. Time had been meaningless lately, but her pocket watch said that an hour had past before Lawrence and Captain Wormell emerged, each holding the cocky little McLellan by an arm. The three cab drivers mysteriously appeared, too.

  At his cab, Wormell opened the door and tried to push McLellan in. McLellan lurched sideways. “Go way, frog-eyes.” He staggered into the middle of the street.

  Wormell grabbed him by the scruff.

  McLellan slurred, “Lemme go, or I'll shove a knife in yer throat.”

  McLellan reached into his pocket. Ann cried out a warning. The thing McLellan brought out was white, fat and pointed like a scimitar. Wormell grabbed the man's wrist and wrung the scimitar knife from it. Tossing it on the bricks, he said, “Come along or I'll charge you for threatening an officer.”

  McLellan lunged to bite Wormell. Missing, he snarled, “You'll be a dead man 'fore the new year's two weeks gone.”

  Wormell spun him around and frog-marched him down the street. Ann heard the hysteria in her laugh. Hurriedly, Lawrence dismissed the captain's hired car, picked the knife off the street and settled himself in the back seat next to her. He said to the driver, “Follow those men.” He turned to her. “McLellan's staying at one of those sailor's rests a couple of blocks up.”

  “Captain Wormell can't keep him there all night unless he chains him to the bed.”

  “Wormell made arrangements to book the hotel for McLellan and his crew during their liberty. The hotel doors lock so the sailors can get inside without a key, but they can't leave without one.”

  “That's Draconian.”

  “It's an old trick they used in the days when they kidnapped sailors because they wouldn't sign on voluntarily for dangerous voyages.”

  They reached the rundown hotel in time to see Captain Wormell tugging McLellan up the stone steps. She surveyed the stout bars on all the windows. None had glass. Wormell shoved McLellan inside a thick wood door and slammed it shut. No sooner had Wormell descended the steps than the street echoed with McLellan's curses. He stood at a window, clutching the bars. “Sunnafabitch. Watch yer back. Next chance, I'll put a spar in it.”

  Wormell called up to him. “Be at the ship at daybreak or I'll have you up on desertion charges.” He got in the front seat and turned to speak to Lawrence. “His kind never remember in the morning.”

  Lawrence held out the knife.

  Wormell's yellow teeth showed through his grin. “Scrimshaw. That'd do a number on my gullet. Let our Swedish friend have it as a souvenir.”

  Lawrence handed the knife to her. In the darkness she could see the intricate sailing ship etched on the handle. When she rubbed the blade, its smooth coldness bit her fingers, and she was happy to slide it into a pocket of her suit.

  Lawrence said. “A fine hand crafted that piece. McLellan's?”

  Wormell grunted. “More'n likely he stole it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  --

  When they set sail the next morning, Ann knew Captain Wormell was mistaken on many fronts. First, she checked out the knife and saw that McLellan's initials were on the blade. Could he have stolen it from someone with the exact same
initials? And McLellan obviously remembered his captain's rough treatment of the night before. He glared at Wormell's back, rage barely contained in his small body. Then to worsen the tension, Wormell reminded McLellan that it had cost thirty dollars to get him out of jail, and that that sum would be subtracted from his contract price of one-hundred-fifty dollars per month.

  In one instance, the two men stood at the wheel and faced each other. McLellan's yellow-hazel eyes damned Wormell, but Wormell's intensity equaled McLellan's meanness. This Captain Wormell differed from the man who'd sat across the table from her and Lawrence in Rio. This Captain Wormell had a curious way of holding his hands at his side with his palms facing down. He'd open and shut them while he snorted out short breaths, reminding her of a bull ready to rampage. She expected to see two men rolling on the deck in mortal combat. But then Wormell turned away and she could let out her breath.

  There were other breath-holding moments and Lawrence suggested she confine herself to her stateroom as any visitor did when trouble brewed. Her stateroom was just off the Captain's quarters. It was a six-by-nine private room done up especially for “the Swedish gentleman's use.” It had a lamp, a small table, a three-legged footstool and a narrow bunk bed. A copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Bible were on the table next to the lamp.

  After a few days tempers cooled and the days were pleasant and sunny. The capricious South Atlantic winds had the crew trimming the sails constantly. She particularly watched the red-headed Finn named Fredrickson. He was the bosun. Competent, but arrogant, he'd often look obliquely at her. She certainly wouldn't want to meet him in a bar after he'd had a few drinks. She explained her feeling to Lawrence.

  Lawrence seemed cross when he asked, “Why is that?”

  “Well,” she said, rising to the challenge in his question, “remember when we began this journey, the Coastguardsman said that a fellow with red hair who didn't look like an officer hailed a lightship?”

  “I do remember that, yes. He told the lightship master that the Deering had lost her anchors in a gale and that the lightship should notify the ship's owners.”

  “Could Fredrickson be the man the lightship officer saw?”

  “Of course.”

  His shortness hurt, and she demanded, “Are we headed for a gale?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Where we'll lose our anchors?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “Can't we avert the disaster? Warn them to take a different course?”

  “What's past is unalterable,” he said and strode off.

  He never apologized for his rudeness. Like other times though, he tried to atone by paying her lavish compliments and caressing her arms when they sat on the storage barrels on the deck, observing the crew at their tasks, enjoying the schooner as it sailed gracefully through the white horses. Lawrence explained they were waves with white frothy crests like horses' manes. He made her feel like a bold adventuress in a dangerous world, a world that suited her temperament more than the soulless technological world of a hundred years from now.

  Lawrence had explained to her that each man was responsible for a particular sail and that the Danes were excellent sailors. Even so, Captain Wormell found fault. Many times during the day he would use his open-close hand gestures to express his disapproval. She commented to Lawrence a couple of times that McLellan seldom took the wheel, staying instead in his quarters.

  “He escapes in his rum,” Lawrence said.

  However, one day when McLellan was at the wheel, suddenly the ship heeled. Ann tumbled from a barrel to the deck as Lawrence snatched for her. Both slid on their fronts across the deck, wedging together against a shroud. “Damn, man,” Lawrence bellowed. He looked toward the wheelhouse. “You got her backwinded. Release the lines.”

  At the same moment, Captain Wormell stormed from the chart room and yelled at McLellan, “Get away from the wheel, you drunken moron.” He looked around the deck where the crew stood, inactive. “Bosun, release the sheets.”

  “Aye, sir,” Fredrickson said.

  The Danes flew into action and Lawrence whispered in her ear, “They did it on purpose.”

  “Did what?”

  “Heeled her. Got her sails pushing away from the wind.”

  “Then it wasn't McLellan's fault?”

  “Yes, he should have seen what was happening before she heeled.”

  “Was it a close call?”

  “No, the crew isn't going to put themselves into the sea. But they wanted to make McLellan look bad.”

  “He can look bad on his own.”

  That evening at dinner, Lawrence said to Captain Wormell, “Sir, I just wanted to say that I sense tension and danger.”

  Captain Wormell's fist hit the table. “Thank God, this is my last voyage. I can tell you Hampton Roads can't rise on my port side too soon.”

  “How did you get picked for this schooner?” Lawrence said, his hands in his lap, his food untouched.

  “I came out of retirement to do a favor for my friend Bill Merritt. We schooner men are a dying breed. Steamers – everywhere steamers. Bah. Give me a sleek four-or-five-master and a wind at my back and I'm a happy man. But nowadays, many schooner men have been corrupted.”

  “How so, if I may ask?”

  “Booze. Demon rum. Ships' captains get twice the rate for bringing spirits up from the West Indies ever since Congress passed that asinine Prohibition Act. Anyway, Bill Merritt asked me to take the ship when he fell ill because those few captains he could trust were sailing elsewhere. Several other men petitioned to take the Deering in his place, but they were of questionable moral fiber.”

  Lawrence apparently understood. “Those were the captains who took their load of coal or whatever to the south and then brought back booze.”

  “Yes, and as God is my witness, and on my darling Lula's head, I'd never cotton to breaking the law of the land or the sea.”

  “Did Bill Merritt trust his crew?”

  “We never spoke of the crew, but his son, who was to be his first mate, said that they were surly. In hindsight, I've been thinking that Bill Merritt was a hearty man. It makes me wonder if he didn't feign sickness to get away from this miserable crew we're stuck with. He would have learned their ways when he brought the schooner down from Boston to Delaware before her voyage to Rio. I've never encountered meaner group of men at sea, and that's saying a lot.”

  Lawrence looked grave and his voice was somber when he asked, “Do you fear a mutiny?”

  Ann laid her fork aside. She was too electrified at the turn of the talk to eat. Knowing that the ship would hit a shoal eventually was nothing compared to the anticipation, to not knowing what or who would make it happen.

  “Every captain has nightmares of mutinies,” Wormell confided. “It's a fact of life on the open seas.”

  “I'd watch McLellan,” Lawrence said.

  Ann thought, I'd watch the bosun.

  “So far,” Wormell said, “all I see in McLellan is a drunk. He's stowed some rum on board. He doesn't even show up for his pusser's share of the grog.”

  “Too bad you can't get the cat-o-nine onto his hide,” Lawrence said.

  Wormell frowned. “I don't cotton to it for any crewman. Best, I say, let McLellan stay in his cups. He's less a trial. I may be twice his age, but when he's three sheets to the wind I'm faster than his young legs.”

  All of a sudden the door slammed against the wall of the cabin. Captain Wormell spewed coffee from his mouth. The hair on the back of her neck rose from the savagery filling the room. The bosun stood in the doorway, his red hair tangled, his light eyes filled with murder. She'd never seen such viciousness on a human face – the lips pulled back, a growl in the throat. He held a long knife, blade pointed at the ceiling. The Danes surrounded him. Their palpable venom sunk into the marrow of her bones.

  Lawrence reached over and grabbed her arm, pulling her down, urging her underneath the table, but the stout legs were in the way. Ri
sing, she saw Fredrickson level the knife to signal the charge. She screamed, “No.”

  The attackers swarmed the table. Wormell rose. A powerful man, taller than any of them, he still couldn't take them all on. It happened so fast. They were on him, and he flung back, knocking his chair over, falling sideways. The Danes hauled him to his feet. Knives flashed. Blood spurted. Wormell's hands grabbed his gut. The flat of a broadsword blade lifted his chin to hoist his head, and knives drove into his body again.

  Ann, rigid in her seat, felt the splash of blood. Her hand went to her lips as her tongue licked blood. Outraged, she jumped from the chair, but Lawrence seized her around the waist and pulled her down, squeezing her jaws lightly. “We cannot help him. He is doomed.”

  “We must.”

  “It is his fate and we are powerless. We are observers.”

  “No.”

  Knowing that he was right and that Wormell was beyond help, her frightened eyes roved over the attackers. Fredrickson crashed the heavy chair over Wormell's head again. A leg flung from the chair. He picked up the club and beat the still body of the captain while Danish knives continued to hack into him.

  As if a bell signaled the end of the blood-fest, Fredrickson rose up over the body, teeth showing, light eyes agleam. He signaled the Danes to pick up the body, and so they grabbed Wormell's arms and legs. Ann choked back bile when she saw the gray and red tissue that had been his head. She cried out when his skeletal face suddenly rolled toward her.

  Lawrence reached out a hand to calm her. “My dear, it's almost over.”

  “Lawrence, my God. What now?”

  “They'll throw him overboard. But he won't drown.”

  Shocked to her core, she blurted, “How can you be so cold-blooded?”

  Lawrence smiled strangely at her. “I am sorry, too, that I am.”

  She felt hope inside her die. She put her head in her hands and sobbed.

  --

  Inside her stateroom, Ann rested her head on Lawrence's chest. He ran his fingers through her hair. “My dearest, Ann …” The words echoed in his chest with a soothing resonance. “In my selfish quest, I have brought terror into your heart. For that, I will be forever sorry.”